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the experience of art and the art of experience: museums, theme parks, and van gogh in the 21st century

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the experience of art and the art of experience: museums, theme parks, and van gogh in the 21st century

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Content the experience of art and the art of experience:
museums, theme parks, and van gogh in the 21st century.
By
taylor brock
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(CURATORIAL PRACTICES AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE)
December 2023
Copyright 2023 taylor brock
Dedication
for lil lis and emer, who never failed to suck the marrow out of life with endless love,
laughter, and grace.
I miss you both forever and always.
ⅱ
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, this thesis would not be possible without the patience and brilliance
of Jenny Lin. I also want to extend a huge thank you to the rest of my committee,
Annette Kim and Suzanne Lacy, as well as several other USC faculty who inspired
many of the present ideas. Shoutout to the MA/MFA class of ‘23, and specifically
Angelina Jesson, who is my favorite person to travel down the rabbit hole of discovering
art and life with. To my For Freedoms colleagues, who have been so patient and
supportive during my time doubling as a grad student – but more importantly, have kept
my mind and spirit constantly fed throughout the last 7 years. Lastly, to the friends,
family, authors, poets, musicians, filmmakers, and artists who have gifted so many
moments of love, joy, and inspiration - you make the ride of life rich, fun, and beautiful
beyond belief! C’est la vie!
ⅲ
Table of Contents
D e d i c a t i o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ii
A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iii
A b s t r a c t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
C h a p t e r O n e : T h e S t a t e O f B e i n g . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
C h a p t e r T w o : M u s e u m s A s G r a v e y a r d s , M u s e u m s A s T r o p h y C a s e s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
C h a p t e r T h r e e : T h e W o r k O f A r t I n T h e A g e O f I m m e r s i v e E x p e r i e n c e s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
C h a p t e r F o u r : W h a t W e C a n L e a r n F r o m M i n i a t u r e G o l f a n d T h e m e P a r k s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
C h a p t e r F i v e : T h e A r t O f S p a c e a n d P l a c e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
C h a p t e r S i x : W h e r e D o W e G o F r o m H e r e ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
R e f e r e n c e s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
ⅳ
Abstract
We, in the 21st century, are a series of contradictions. Many of us have spent our
lives unintentionally digesting nondecomposable materials, materials that will live on
beyond our corporeal selves, making us a collaboration between organic and artificial,
natural and unnatural. Our lives are becoming more mediated by technology, though we
still value in-person interactions. Participation in organized religion is at an all-time low,
yet we crave meaning and oneness. There is a crisis of imagination, as people cut
themselves off from history, and simultaneously fail to see any possibility of a radically
different future. The experience of art is one of the greatest tools for connecting us to a
world outside of ourselves, as well as helping us to imagine alternate realities. Yet,
much of the visual art of today is experienced in either a hyper-controlled, innocuous
museum or a vaguely art-flavored “immersive exhibition.” In this thesis, I will assess
these extremes of the contemporary art world and consider some artists and art spaces
pushing back against white walls, single lanes, and neutrality. What role do
phenomenology, and cultural, historical, and site specificity play in the experience of
art? How do we embrace this “doubleness of experience” to reawaken our sense of
imagination around our social and political realities? Can we expand our idea of art and
pull inspiration from less traditional spaces? I am not suggesting that theme parks and
jazz music will save the world, but hey, maybe I am!
ⅴ
“I will enjoy this life. I will open it like a peach in season, suck the juice from every finger ,
run my tongue over my chin. I will not worry about cliches or uninvited guests peering in
my windows. I will love and be loved. Save and be saved a thousand times. I will let the
want into my body , bless the heat under my skin. My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy
this life.” - Kate Baer, Idea
1
“The search for freedom does not seem to have any road or destination.” - Saul Alinsky
2
“Amidst our culture of broadcast & bigness, Bachelard recommends that we rediscover
the immense in the most intimate of things.”
2
Saul Alinsky, R u l e s f o r R a d i c a l s : A P r a c t i c a l P r i m e r f o r R e a l i s t i c R a d i c a l s (New York: Vintage Books,
1989), xiv .
1
Kate Baer, A n d Y e t (New York: Harper, 2022).
ⅵ
Chapter One: The State Of Being
“ B u t c o u l d n ' t e v e r y o n e ' s l i f e b e c o m e a w o r k o f a r t ? W h y s h o u l d t h e l a m p o r t h e h o u s e b e a n a r t
o b j e c t b u t n o t o u r l i f e ? ” - Michel Foucault
3
We, in the 21st century, are a series of contradictions. Many of us have spent our lives
unintentionally digesting nondecomposable materials, materials that will live on beyond
our corporeal selves, making us a collaboration between organic and artificial, natural
and unnatural. Our lives are becoming more and more mediated by technology, though
we still value in-person interactions. Participation in organized religion is at an all-time
low, yet we still find ourselves searching for meaning and oneness. Late-stage
capitalism is quenching and perpetuating the craving for 24/7 consumption and
stimulation. Our culture is often determined by follower counts, social clout, and
“Instagramability” a la the near-future dystopias of the television show Black Mirror. In
this world of hyper-attention, fast fashion, mass production, and commodification people
seem to be cut off from the source – the source of the clothes they wear, the foods they
eat, the neighborhoods they occupy, and most of all themselves. There is a growing
sense of collective anxiety, about climate change, geo-political tensions, the policing of
one’s body, and so much more. Many of the top-grossing films of the day are
recreations of past films, another addition to an already successful mega-franchise,
funded by corporations as pseudo-marketing tools, or all of the above. All of this has
given way to a severe sense of alienation and a deep crisis of imagination. In the book
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? author Mark Fischer develops the concept
of "capitalist realism", or "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only
3
Paul Rabinow, “ T h e F o u c a u l t R e a d e r” (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 350.
1
viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine
a coherent alternative to it."
4
All of this can feel potentially irredeemable and existentially
draining. With that, how do we find the will to move forward?
In the early 20th century sociologist, Émile Durkheim coined the term “collective
effervescence,” defined as when “ a community or society may come together and
simultaneously communicate the same thought and participate in the same action.”
5
This creates unity between the group. Organized religion is one of the most clear
manifestations of collective effervescence, but where does art play into this? How about
at a concert or a club when everyone in the crowd is singing along to the same lyrics,
dancing to the same music? These are the moments in which we are invited,
encouraged even, to enjoy the present moment. There is something bigger than
ourselves that happens in that moment. It is so easy to feel isolated, and lonely, and it is
moments like these that help us to realize that we are not alone. Alain de Botton says
“In a secularising world, art has replaced religion as a touchstone of our reverence and
devotion.” The experience of art is one of the greatest tools for connecting us to a world
greater than ourselves, as well as helping us to imagine alternate realities. It is through
the experience of art as a noun that we open up to art as a verb– as a way of seeing
and as a way of being. This shifts the way we see the world, away from the fixed and
the stagnant, to the ever-evolving and the wondrous. Yet, much of the visual art of today
is experienced in either a hyper-controlled, innocuous museum or a vaguely art-flavored
“immersive exhibition” such as Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience or Wisdome LA’s
“Immersive Art Park”. In this thesis, I will assess these extremes of the contemporary art
5
Paul Carls. "Émile Durkheim." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, July 12, 2017.
https://iep.utm.edu/emile-durkheim/.
4
Mark Fisher, C a p i t a l i s t R e a l i s m : I s T h e r e N o A l t e r n a t i v e ? (London: Zero Books, 2009), 2.
2
world and consider some artists and art spaces pushing back against white walls, single
lanes, and neutrality. What role do phenomenology, and cultural, historical, and site
specificity play in the experience of art? How do we embrace the contradictory to
awaken our sense of imagination around our social and political realities? Can we
expand our idea of art and pull inspiration from some less traditional spaces? How can
this reconnect us to the Source?
3
Chapter Two: Museums As Graveyards, Museums As Trophy Cases
" T h e a r t w o r l d i s b o u n d t o t h e e c o n o m y a s t i g h t l y a s A h a b t o t h e w h i t e w h a l e . ” - Julian
Stallabrass
6
My former professor, art critic Boris Groys, often used to refer to museums as
graveyards “where the past goes to die.” In On Art Activism, he writes
Our contemporary notion of art and art aestheticization has its roots in the French
Revolution—in the decisions that were made by the French revolutionary
government concerning the objects that this government inherited from the Old
Regime. A change of regime—especially a radical change such as the one
introduced by the French Revolution—is usually accompanied by a wave of
iconoclasm….The French revolutionaries took a different course: instead of
destroying the sacred and profane objects belonging to the Old Regime, they
defunctionalized, or, in other words, aestheticized them. The French Revolution
turned the design of the Old Regime into what we today call art, i.e., objects not
of use but of pure contemplation. This violent, revolutionary act of aestheticizing
the Old Regime created art as we know it today.
7
This set the stage for what would be the museum conception of art – a collection of
objects to admire, objects to look at. From Bürger’s scholarship on the birth of the
“institution of art” we learn, “First, the avant-garde artist is always alienated from the
audience, outside the mainstream of traditional art and scornful of the middle class and
its utilitarian preferences. The bourgeoisie saw little use for pure art in the service of the
intellect or beauty or aesthetics and understood only that art could be useful to reinforce
their own social and political power, a lesson learned from the once powerful church and
7
Boris Groys, “On Art Activism.” e - f l u x. Issue #56. June 2014.
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/56/60343/on-art-activism/
6
Julian Stallabrass, A r t I n c o r p o r a t e d : T h e S t o r y o f C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004).
4
state.”
8
Between Groys and Bürger, we get a window into some of the foundations of the
contemporary art world – a total aestheticization of the past, as well as a reinforcer of
one’s own social and political power. The art world has always been connected to the
worlds of money and power. Today, we are seeing more and more collaborations
between arts institutions and corporations. We are seeing more and more artists gain
notoriety via Instagram or other forms of media-related attention. On the flip side, the art
world is becoming significantly more inclusive, creating so much more space and
opportunity for artists outside the traditional canon. People have more access to art and
artists than ever before. But, even as the inner workings of the museum change,
including many more women, folks of color, differing genders, and sexual orientations,
the foundations (quite literally) remain the same.
In White W alls, Designer Dresses, Mark Wrigley explores the under-discussed
ubiquity of white walls in modern architecture. “Wigley argues that modern buildings are
not naked. The white wall is itself a form of clothing—the newly athletic body of the
building, like that of its occupants, wears a new kind of garment and these garments are
meant to match.”
9
The whiteness of walls is meant to offer neutrality, yet more so, they
standardized the experience of art – suggesting that the art itself is interchangeable with
one another. Henri Lefebvre wrote, “Inasmuch as abstract space [of modernism and
capital] tends towards homogeneity, towards the elimination of existing differences or
peculiarities, a new space cannot be born (produced) unless it accentuates
differences.”
10
Contemporary art museums have made a move towards homogeneity,
10
Miwon Kwon, O n e P l a c e a f t e r A n o t h e r : S i t e - S p e c i f i c A r t a n d L o c a t i o n a l I d e n t i t y (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 2002), 157.
9
Mark Wrigley, W h i t e W a l l s , D e s i g n e r D r e s s e s (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001).
8
Jeanne Willette, “The Definition of the Avant-Garde . ” A r t H i s t o r y U n s t u f f e d. January 22, 2010.
https://arthistoryunstuffed.com/definition-avant-garde/
5
towards eliminating difference to have a clean, sanitized, “neutral” experience of the
work. Yet, simultaneously, we have seen a major rise in “curatorial activism” as
museums have been working hard to incorporate politics and activism within their
exhibitions and programming. How do these themes work against the backdrop of
ubiquitous whiteness?
In “Is a Museum a Factory?” filmmaker and artist Hito Steyerl equates the
modern-day museum to a traditional Fordist factory. A key element of her comparison
lies in the fact that a museum has become the latest typical venue for the viewing of
political films.
In reality, political films are very often screened in the exact same place as they
always were: in former factories, which are today, more often than not, museums.
A gallery, an art space, a white cube with abysmal sound isolation. Which will
certainly show political films. But it also has become a hotbed of contemporary
production. Of images, jargon, lifestyles, and values. Of exhibition value,
speculation value, and cult value. Of entertainment plus gravitas. Or of aura
minus distance. A flagship store of Cultural Industries, staffed by eager interns
who work for free.
11
As Steyerl lays out, political films were traditionally shown in factories to educate
the audience, whilst, in a museum, a political film (or any “political” art for that matter)
merely produces the audience it wishes to educate. This is not to say that a work of art
in a museum cannot be impactful, but when a work of art is designated to a sanitized
space in which the viewer has been told “this is art” then how is its capacity to “work”?
To further quote Steyerl:
A factory, so to speak, but a different one. It [the museum] is still a space for
production, still a space of exploitation and even of political screenings. It is a
space of physical meeting and sometimes even common discussion. At the same
time, it has changed almost beyond recognition. So what sort of factory is this? In
the museum-as-factory, something continues to be produced. Installation,
11
Hito Steyerl, "Is the Museum a Factory?" e - f l u x Issue #07. June 2009.
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/07/61390/is-a-museum-a-factory/
6
planning, carpentry, viewing, discussing, maintenance, betting on rising values,
and networking alternate in cycles. An art space is a factory, which is
simultaneously a supermarket—a casino and a place of worship whose
reproductive work is performed by cleaning ladies and cellphone-video bloggers
alike. The museum doesn’t organize a coherent crowd of people. People are
dispersed in time and space—a silent crowd, immersed and atomized, struggling
between passivity and overstimulation. In actuality, the contemporary museum is
more like a cacophony—installations blare simultaneously while nobody listens.
12
One often walks into a museum, and leaves after to continue on with their day
exactly as it was before they walked into the museum. Gallery shows have become
designated social events, often with the art on the walls taking a backseat to the
attending crowd. So again, what is the role of art spaces in the contemporary world?
There is a scene in Swedish Filmmaker Ruben Östlund’s The Square where the team
from Sweden’s “X-Royal Museum” is meeting with an outside communications team to
determine how to market the museum’s latest acquisition, The Square. The Square is a
square engraved into a public plaza which is intended as “a sanctuary of trust and
caring.” It has replaced a bronze horse statue and serves as “a place where people can
ask for help” according to Christian, the museum's chief curator. The communication
team deems these values “too general” from a communication standpoint, and asks
what makes the work stand out, or what would create some sort of controversy. They
say that without this, the museum will only reach the usual “culture vultures.” One of the
museum staff then suggests “something like the ice bucket challenge.” One of the
communication guys poignantly asks, “What is the difference between art and
marketing?” Throughout the film, we see the moralistic stance of the art museum,
alongside the people’s own contradictory behaviors. It all becomes about the spectacle.
It becomes a series of empty words and contradictory actions, which serves as a
12
Steyerl, “Is a Museum a Factory?”
7
window into the contemporary art museum. In an interview about the film, Östlund says,
“...my main goal with this film wasn’t to criticize the art world, but instead use it to
discuss the square’s ideas, since it’s natural to verbalize these ideas in an art museum.
But in doing my research for this film, I traveled around to many different contemporary
art museums, and what I saw was so much of the same. There’s a neon sign on the
wall, a Warhol piece, a couple of objects on the floor—but the visitors were completely
disconnected from the art. I couldn’t see any connection between the art and what was
going on in the world outside the museum’s walls, so that’s something that I of course
wanted to criticize, maybe even attack.”
13
The walls of the museum create a barrier between the everyday life outside and
the often hyper-controlled innocuous space inside. Is there an irony in going to a
museum to reflect on or learn about “life”?
When Marcel Duchamp puts his signature on mass-produced, randomly chosen
objects and sends them to art exhibits, this provocation of art presupposes a
concept of what art is: The fact that he signs the Ready-Mades contains a clear
allusion to the category 'work.' The signature that attests that the work is both
individual and unique is here affixed to the mass-produced object. The idea of
the nature of art as it has developed since the Renaissance- the individual
creation of unique works- is thus provocatively called into question. The act of
provocation itself takes the place of the work But doesn't this make the category
'work' redundant? Duchamp's provocation addresses itself to art as a social
institution. Insofar as the work is part of that institution, the attack is also directed
against it.
14
In the book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, author Mark Fischer says,
What we are dealing with now is not the incorporation of materials that previously
seemed to possess subversive potentials, but instead, their pre-corporatization:
the pre-emptive formatting and shaping of desires, aspirations and hopes by
capitalist culture…..No-one embodied (and struggled with) this deadlock more
14
Bürger, T h e o r y O f T h e A v a n t - G a r d e , 51.
13
Demi Kampakis, “Changing the Social Contract: Ruben Östlund Discusses "The Square". Mubi.
December 01, 2017.
https://mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/changing-the-social-contract-ruben-ostlund-discusses-the-square
8
than Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. In his dreadful lassitude and objectless rage,
Cobain seemed to give wearied voice to the despondency of the generation that
had come after history, whose every move was anticipated, tracked, bought and
sold before it had even happened. Cobain knew that he was just another piece of
spectacle, that nothing runs better on MTV than a protest against MTV; knew that
his every move was a cliché scripted in advance, knew that even realizing it is a
cliché.
15
Similarly, what happens when an artist’s critique of the art world ends up in a museum?
Is it subversive or merely perpetuating the same structures that it attempts to criticize?
What does it mean for a performance about anti-capitalism to take place within a
museum space? A space that has often been funded by and is visited by wealthy
people whose entire success has been built due to their allegiance to the capitalist
system.
In her essay “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique,” artist
Andrea Fraser argues that there is no “outside” the art world saying, “But just as art
cannot exist outside the field of art, we cannot exist outside the field of art, at least not
as artists, critics, curators, etc. And what we do outside the field, to the extent that it
remains outside, can have no effect within it.”
16
Fraser makes a fair point here–artists,
curators, and critics have chosen to be a part of this “world” and their mere existence
within it perpetuates the structures which built it. Yet, it is the social, political, and
financial dynamics within the physical confines of the art institution that I am speaking
to. And specifically, how those dynamics within the institution are experienced by folks
who may not be a self-proclaimed “part of the art world.” It is these dynamics that
validate the art world’s widespread reputation as stuffy, pretentious, and unwelcoming.
16
Andrea Fraser. ““From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique.” ArtForum. September
2005.
https://www.artforum.com/print/200507/from-the-critique-of-institutions-to-an-institution-of-critique-9407
15
Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (London: Zero Books, 2009), 9.
9
The Center For Artistic Activism writes, “The venue for the traditional artist is
galleries and museums – controlled spaces where the art itself does not need to speak
very loudly because all attention is focused on it. Political art has a dauntingly large
venue: the street, the marketplace, the mass media. This is an out-of-control space
where one competes with the cacophony rather than retreating into silence and
solitude.”
17
In a museum, the power and social dynamics constantly at play become
crippling. One does not talk too loudly, one does not touch the art, and when these
things are allowed, they feel like parodies of themselves. In The Square a journalist,
played by Elizabeth Moss, asks Christian, the head curator, to explain a statement “she
didn’t totally get.” The statement reads “Exhibition, nonexhibition: an evening
conversation that explores the dynamics of the exhibitable and the construction of
publicness in the spirit of Robert Smithson’s “Sight/NonSight.” Nonsight to sight,
nonexhibition to exhibition, what is the topos of exhibition nonexhibition in the crowded
moments of mega exhibition?” She follows it up with “I'm sorry I clearly am not as
scholarly as you are.” In a later, particularly excruciating scene, the artist, Oleg,
performs for a museum dinner, imitating a monkey and getting aggressive with the
guests. You can feel the tension within the room, the awkwardness as people don’t
know what to do. The museum is filled with unspoken rules, for the attendees, the
museum staff, and the art as well. In a museum you are not meant to speak to one
another unless you are discussing the art, you are meant to pause and look at the art
inquisitively, and you can take photos with your phone, particularly if it is one of the
greats. This contract counteracts what art so often tries to do – disrupt, reimagine,
17
Steve Lambert, “An Open Letter To Critics Writing About Political Art.” The Center For Artistic Activism.
October 30, 2012. https://c4aa.org/2012/10/an-open-letter-to-critics-writing-about-political-art
10
question. To requote Steyerl, “Where is reality then? Out there, beyond the white cube
and its display technologies? How about inverting this claim, somewhat polemically, to
assert that the white cube is in fact the Real with a capital R: the blank horror and
emptiness of the bourgeois interior.”
18
The museum is a mirror of much of the rest of our
current day society; a bubbling desire to be “political” but without causing too much of a
stir, too much discomfort, or too much depth of change.
One requisite step in confronting the contradictory nature of political or activist art
within an art museum is a major reckoning with the history of art in museums. In an
early scene in the 2018 film Black Panther, Erik Killmonger and Ulysses Klaue are
standing in front of a case of artifacts at the Museum of Great Britain. A white, female
“expert” comes up and asks Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan, if he has any
questions. He asks about a few pieces, and then eventually gets to one from his home,
the African nation of Wakanda. He candidly tells the curator “Imma take it off your
hands.” When she worriedly responds, he says “How do you think your ancestors got
these? Do you think they paid a fair price?”
19
Freakonomics Radio, a popular podcast
series that explores “the hidden side of everything” ran a three-part series exploring the
question of “What to do with stolen art?” They explore this question specifically through
the question of the Benin Bronzes, or a group of sculptures dedicated to the Kingdom of
Benin, or modern-day Nigeria. Many of these sculptures were taken by the British forces
in 1897 and most are now housed in the British Museum in London, England. There has
been much controversy around what to do with these works, and other artifacts taken by
19
Black Panther. Directed by Ryan Coogler. 2018. Burbank: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
18
Steyerl, “Is a Museum a Factory?”
11
force, and housed in various historical museums around the world.
20
Just recently, on
August 28th, China released a formal request calling for the restitution of global artifacts
saying, “The vast majority of the British Museum’s huge collection of up to eight million
items came from countries other than the U.K., and a significant portion of it was
acquired through improper channels, even dirty and sinful means,”
21
The comedian
James Acaster has a stand-up bit in which he says “A long time ago, but not long
enough ago that it’s not still relevant, everyone in Britain got in a big old boat, and we
set sail and we robbed (and this will sound far-fetched) everyone in the world. Do you
remember that? What a spree that was. Do you remember the great heist? What a
spree. And we got all the swag, didn’t we, and we took it back to old blighty, and we hid
it (this is the clever part), we hid it in a museum….”
22
The Freakonomics episode asks
the question if museums are anything more than trophy cases, showing off the goods
taken by force, conquest, and colonization. Of course, there are the questions of what to
do with these pieces, which is what the podcast explores, but it also begs the question
of what museums are for. What is the role of the museum? In the final episode, Lonnie
G. Bunch III, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, says, “Museums can no
longer simply be what they once were - they can no longer be collections of material
that tells old stories - not new stories - museums have to recognize that they have an
22
Stephen J. Dubner, “541: The Case of the $4 Million Gold Coffin,” May 3, 2023, in Freakonomics Radio,
produced by Morgan Levey, podcast, MP3 audio, 53.46,
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-case-of-the-4-million-gold-coffin/
21
Sarah Cascone. “China Joins a Growing Number of Nations Demanding the British Museum Restitute
Artifacts From Its Collection in the Wake of Widespread Thefts” artnet. August 28, 2023.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/china-demands-british-museum-restitution-2354921
20
One of the British Museum’s key arguments for keeping the works has been that it is “better equipped
to safeguard the artifacts than less-well-endowed institutions.” Extremely recently, it was discovered that
an employee stole more than 2000 objects from the museum’s collection and sold them on eBay.
Resulting in louder and larger calls for restitution. The British Museum is (somehow) still dragging its feet
in doing so.
12
obligation to make their community better - whether that’s raising issues of social
justice, of environmental issues…”
23
Historical Museums exist to tell us the history of our
nations, of our people, but often when that history is sordid, or only part of the story,
how are we to trust museums with these stories? Art is so often future-facing, how can
museums become spaces that do so as well?
Additionally, museums are often well-known for their permanent collections. What
is on display is often only a fraction of the works owned by the institution, while the rest
of the collection gathers dust in an unexplored basement until a curator decides to
include it in an exhibition. These permanent collections tend to be a sort of bragging
rights, giving the museum the ability to say “Look whose work we own.” But, those “big
names” are of a certain canon, a canon which is perpetuated by museums, perpetuated
by attributing value solely to the notoriety of the author. Of course, contextualizing the
works shifts this, but so often they are displayed as symbols of glory, pride, and
objective history. Yet, much like the looted goods, this is only merely a small part of the
larger story. Bunch ends the episode by asking the question that must be asked of
museums – “Are you a museum that is looking back or looking forward?” In a world
where museums have less and less appeal, where wealthy museum donors and board
members are being ousted for their seediness or corrupt means of wealth acquisition,
where do museums or art institutions go from here? Museums require a major
reinvention, both internally and externally to be able to exist in a changing world. They
must embrace accountability and restorative justice to dismantle colonial, patriarchal,
and racist histories. If museums are to be looking forward, then they must find
23
Stephen J. Dubner, “543: How to Return Stolen Art,” May 17, 2023, in Freakonomics Radio, produced
by Morgan Levey, podcast, MP3 audio, 56.47, https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-return-stolen-art/
13
innovative ways to experience art, invite more people in, and provoke genuine
exchange and curiosity.
14
Chapter Three: The Work Of Art In The Age Of Immersive Experiences
“ A r t i s r a t h e r p o w e r l e s s . . . o n t h e
l e v e l o f w h a t i t s h o w s . I t i s m o r e
p o w e r f u l o n t h e l e v e l o f h o w i t s h o w s . ”
Hito Steyerl
2 4
In The Work Of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin explores
the role of technology in shaping one’s aesthetic experience, claiming that, “Mechanical
reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art.”
25
We have seen this
with the extremely popular Van Gogh Immersive Experience, “The producers of Van
Gogh: The Immersive Experience estimate that about 50 percent of their audience has
never set foot in a museum before coming to see their exhibition.”
26
Immersive
experiences are in the latest craze in Instagrammable art consumption. Just in Los
Angeles, there is Vah Gogh: The Immersive Experience, Immersive Frida Kahlo, Flutter:
An Immersive Art Experience (which includes aura reading and time traveling),
Wisdome LA (to travel through the artworks at Coachella and Burning Man), Bubble
Planet (reimagining bubbles), and even an immersive experience of Auschwitz. In
today’s world, everything can be immersible. Unsurprisingly, museums are beginning to
adopt the same technology, hoping to establish their own sort of cultural relevance. For
example, The Louvre Museum, the number one most visited art museum in the world,
first virtual reality project offered folks the opportunity to “bring the Mona Lisa to your
own home.”
27
You no longer need to go to museums or galleries to see art anymore, the
27
Naomi Rea. “The ‘Mona Lisa’ Experience: How the Louvre’s First-Ever VR Project, a 7-Minute
Immersive da Vinci Odyssey, Works.” artnet. October 22, 2019.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/louvre-embraced-virtual-reality-leonardo-blockbuster-1686169
26
Kate Mondloch. 2022. "The Influencers: Van Gogh Immersive Experiences and the Attention-Experience
Economy" Arts 11, no. 5: 90.
25
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illuminations: Essays
and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969).
24
“Hito Steyerl.” MoMA. https://www.moma.org/artists/43752
15
art is brought directly to you. But, is this really an experience of the art? These paintings
were not ever meant to be physically lived in, so are you really “experiencing” the work
by lying on a floor, surrounded by Van Gogh’s sunflowers? Does one overcome the
FOMO of not being at Burning Man by immersing oneself in the art from The Playa? Is
being “immersed” in Auschwitz the most successful way to learn about the horrors of
human history? Benjamin talks about the impossibility of a “simultaneous contemplation
of paintings by a large public” saying, “Painting simply is in no position to present an
object for simultaneous collective experience, as it was possible for architecture at all
times, for the epic poem in the past, and for the movie today.”
28
Yet, here we are, as
hundreds of people lying together engulfed within projected images of paintings. Is this
latest mechanical reproduction of art proving Benjamin’s claim wrong?
An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these
relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world
history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical
dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree, the work of art reproduced
becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.
29
The Van Gogh Immersive Experience is the ultimate sign of reproducibility – it is almost
arbitrary whether this was Van Gogh, Monet, Kahlo, or Dalí – it becomes a
plug-and-play way to showcase “the masters” in our hyper-attention economy. Artists
and works are stripped of context and now merely become the backdrop to an
ever-changing light show. In Theory Of The A vant-Garde, Peter Bürger explores the
history of the avant-garde, and more specifically the institution of art in bourgeois
society. He discusses the influence of Duchamp’s Ready-Mades on illuminating the
superficiality of the institution of art, “Duchamp's provocation not only unmasks the art
29
Benjamin, “The Work Of Art.”
28
Benjamin, “The Work Of Art”
16
market where the signature means more than the quality of the work; it radically
questions the very principle of art in bourgeois society according to which the individual
is considered the creator of the work of art.”
30
When you have Immersive Exhibitions
such as Van Gogh's, it is the signature and the means of production that hold the entire
significance of the work. Museums, such as the Louvre, adopt this same mentality with
campaigns such as “Mona Lisa in VR.” This use of technology removes the work from
any sort of contextual importance or information. A symptom of a late capitalist
economy is to be cut off from one’s history, this is happening in art institutions that are
keen to ignore their own sordid or violent history. We are in a moment of reckoning.
Donna Haraway talks about a time “when species meet”, and “when humans finally
make room for non-human things within the scope of our moral concern.”
31
Art is meant
to help us to imagine new realities. How can art help us to adopt a post-human ethics,
one that helps us to deepen our connections to both ourselves, as well as everyone and
everything around us?
We cannot ignore the emerging technology, we cannot be naysayers, writing it off
as corny or cringy. Rather, we must create a fusion between what was and what will be
– finding ways to develop meaningful art within the supercapitalist, fast-moving attention
economy. As mentioned, some museums are jumping on board, adopting immersive
and VR technologies to showcase their current collections. Others remain stagnant,
offering the same experience as they historically have. Kate Mondloch writes,
31
Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late
Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge,
1991).
30
Peter Bürger, T h e o r y o f t h e A v a n t - G a r d e, trans. Michael Shaw (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1984), 52.
17
On the topic of experiencing art in the age of hyper attention, it bears asking: do
21st-century audiences now require immersion and animation to appreciate
otherwise static, 2D paintings? And, if so, what does this mean for art
spectatorship and its relationship with the attention-experience economy? Have
our well-intentioned art institutions unwittingly evacuated emotion and pleasure?
Have they failed to signal their accessibility and approachability to the extent that
they are now forced to watch audiences meet their needs through
commercialized, animated art-flavored spectacles, or even through staging
similar shows or exhibition spaces themselves?.
32
With mass climate change disasters, peak political polarization, and deep
systemic inequality, our world is in urgent need of a shift. I believe in the power of art
and culture to connect us to ourselves, to bring us together, and to awaken our
imaginations – but the question is, how do we do so? And what role does space and
place play in that?
32
Mondloch, “The Influencers.”
18
Chapter Four: What We Can Learn From Miniature Golf and Theme Parks
“ I t i s o n l y b y m a k i n g e v i d e n t t h e i n t i m a t e r e l a t i o n l i n k i n g t h e t w o t e r m s r e a l a n d i m a g i n a r y t h a t I
h o p e t o b r e a k d o w n t h e d i s t i n c t i o n , w h i c h s e e m s t o m e l e s s a n d l e s s w e l l f o u n d e d , b e t w e e n t h e
s u b j e c t i v e a n d t h e o b j e c t i v e . ” - André Breton
3 3
In Art As Experience, John Dewey writes,
So extensive and subtly pervasive are the ideas that set Art upon a remote
pedestal, that many a person would be repelled rather than pleased if told that he
enjoyed his casual recreations, in part at least, because of their esthetic quality.
The arts which today have most vitality for the average person are things he
does not take to be arts: for instance, the movie, jazzed music, the comic strip,
and, too frequently, newspaper accounts of love-nests, murders, and exploits of
bandits. For, when what he knows as art is relegated to the museum and gallery,
the unconquerable impulse towards experiences enjoyable in themselves finds
such outlet as the daily environment provides. Many a person who protests
against the museum conception of art, still shares the fallacy from which that
conception springs.
34
What happens when we remove art from the pedestal? When art becomes something
that exists and is possible within all aspects of everyday life? When the musician Bob
Dylan was asked if he liked art he responded, “I like miniature golf courses and Terry
Allen.”
35
Terry Allen is an outlaw country singer and conceptual artist Terry Allen is one
of the prime examples of this. Terry Allen was raised in Lubbock, Texas - a West Texas
city known as the home of Buddy Holly. Terry Allen grew up helping his father put on
shows there, even famously hosting Elvis Presley one year. Terry Allen left Texas and
went to Chouinard Art Institute (which would go on to become CalArts). Terry Allen has
simultaneously spanned two seemingly disparate fields: country music and conceptual
art. His practices are deeply intertwined with one another, though often seen as
35
Rachel Monroe, “Terry Allen on the Texas Roots of His Music and Art” New Yorker.
January 4, 2022.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/terry-allen-on-the-texas-roots-of-his-music-and-art
34
John Dewey. A r t a s E x p e r i e n c e. New York: Perigee Books, 2005. 12.
33
André Breton. M a d L o v e. Translated by Mary Ann Caws. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1987.
53.
19
separate from each other. Allen has always had this way of spanning these two spaces,
not alienating either fan base in the process. He has embraced the contradiction of
straddling both these worlds, seeing them as reciprocal art forms rather than opposing
forces. So much of today’s creative world is separated by medium or genre, Terry Allen
is a perfect example of how to throw all that out the window by pushing back against
boxes, boundaries, and expectations. And to Dylan’s other point: the miniature golf
course.
A (good) miniature golf course is often a curated course that incorporates a
running theme throughout the experience. No part stands alone, as each individual
element is crucial to the whole, both in form and function. Compare this to the art world.
So often we attend museum or gallery shows where the throughline feels completely
lost. A successfully curated show has a theme that runs throughout the entire show, a
theme that every work in the show reverts back to. As Brian Wallis once said about the
brilliant curator Okwui Enwezor, “Unlike many curators, [Okwui] Enwezor understood
that each exhibition was an essay or an argument, a brief in what he called his “change
agenda.” By this, he meant not only rewriting existing art—critical canons but also
introducing a radical rethinking of the role that art — and artists — can inhabit in
shaping social and political ideas.”
36
This does not mean that miniature golf courses are
meant to reshape social and political ideas (though maybe they can). But, it means that
there should be a clear goal and agenda, which every component must circle back to.
Art has so much power to shift our understanding of everyone and everything around
36
Brian Wallis, “Okwui Enwezor Pioneered a New Kind of Global Exhibition.” A p e r t u r e . March 20, 2019.
https://aperture.org/editorial/okwui-enwezor-remembrance/
20
us, but when shows are sloppily or overwhelmingly curated, or when the traditional
narratives or canons are perpetuated, then art loses any ability to do its work.
Walter Benjamin differentiates between the German words “erfahrung” and
“erlebnis” - both of which translates in English to “experience.”
37
To Benjamin, “erlebnis”
is when you have an experience, be it positive or negative, while “erfahrung” is when
you experience something - when something happens within you. John Dewey says,
“Since the artist cares in a peculiar way for the phase of experience in which union is
achieved, he does not shun moments of resistance and tension. He rather cultivates
them, not for their own sake but because of their potentialities, bringing to living
consciousness an experience that is unified and total.”
38
It is the role of the artist and the
curator to bring to light this unified and total - something that creators of miniature golf
courses have always known. I do not necessarily agree with Dylan that miniature golf
courses are the finest form of art - but I do believe in Joseph Beuys's expanded concept
of art, which is “aimed at a total permeation of life by creative acts.”
39
If we widen our
definition of what art is, then how does that serve us? What happens when we start to
see the ways we structure our social and political lives as creative acts? What if we
infused that kind of creative, artistic, expansive thinking into all components of our daily
lives? What if we asked our politicians, our scientists, our architects, and urban planners
to think beyond the playbooks, beyond the constraints of what we’ve been told - where
would we find ourselves?
39
Heiner Stachelhaus, revised by Ina Blom. “Beuys, Joseph.” Grove Art Online. 2003.
https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/display/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001.0001/oao-978188444
6054-e-7000008533;jsessionid=D4ADA925A73FA9FF9A8FB1C01431EA8F
38
Dewey, A r t A s E x p e r i e n c e . 15.
37
Walter Benjamin, "Some Motifs," in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, ed.
Peter Demetz, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1986).
21
One place where imagination and creativity seem to run freely is theme parks.
Theme parks have come to symbolize many things: commodity, excess, leisure, and
escape – but what else? What about play, imagination, and enjoyment of the present
moment? In an 1849 essay, composer Richard Wagner used the term
Gesamtkunstwerk or “total work of art.”
40
Gesamtkunstwerk is where painting, sculpture,
and architecture are all working together, balancing one another in harmony. Deeming
something a Gesamtkunstwerk can be quite subjective, and I believe that the closest to
Gesamtkunstwerk that exists today is theme parks. Theme parks are a type of
amusement park that is structured around a central theme. Similar to, and even more so
than, miniature golf courses, every thought, component, and aspect of a theme park
relate to one another, and more specifically to a larger central theme. Knotts Berry Farm
in Buena Park, California is built upon an old berry farm. Many of the rides refer back to
the themes of the farm and craftsmanship, or to the Hispanic heritage of California. In
Pidgeon Forge, Tennessee, singer Dolly Parton’s theme park Dollywood includes rides,
food, and experiences all of which relate to Dolly Parton, Tennessee, or the Smoky
Mountains. Efteling is a theme park in the Netherlands that reflects Dutch Folklore.
Each of these parks is so specific to where they are. Every detail from the theme of the
rides, to offered food options, the music that is playing throughout the park, and even
the way that one navigates through the park is all so meticulously thought out in service
of the larger theme. Each of the aforementioned parks takes into account the
socio-cultural and environmental history of their surroundings, something that many art
exhibitions and museums drastically fail to do.
40
Ursula Rehn Wolfman, “Richard Wagner’s Concept of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’” I n t e r l u d e . March 12,
2013. https://interlude.hk/richard-wagners-concept-of-the-gesamtkunstwerk/
22
The most obvious and famous example would of course be Disneyland.
Disneyland, the dream of entertainment extraordinaire Walt Disney, opened in 1955 in
Anaheim, CA. The goal of Disneyland was to create an attraction “as fun for grown-ups
as it was for children.”
41
To do so, Disney handpicked a group of (brilliantly and aptly
named) “Imagineers” to work with him on the design of the park. The entire goal was
authenticity, believing that the only way for guests to be able to fully suspend their own
reality and immerse themselves in the space was if the entire atmosphere felt familiar.
“Disneyland wasn’t simply a series of attractions clustered together in a convenient
area, it was aesthetically engineered down to the last detail, with the goal of setting a
richly atmospheric scene around every corner.”
42
Disneyland combined storytelling with
an immersive experience. Compare this to Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience.
There is no story, no context, no feeling of familiarity. While immersed in a theme park
experience, one maintains their sense of their own materiality. They are well aware of
their body in the space that they occupy. In VR or other Immersive Experiences, your
materiality dissolves, disconnecting you from any sense of reality, familiarity, or agency.
This sense of agency is what imbues you with the ability to imagine beyond.
In Urban Studies critical discourse, the Disneyfication of place is a widely used
critique when cities feel overly commercialized and sanitized. Part of Disney’s
supremely justified vilification is that “the happiest place on earth” is intimately and
unabashedly tied to revenue generation. The layout of the park is meticulously designed
to encourage visitors to spend as much money as possible, specifically without them
necessarily realizing they are doing so. Disney is not meant to feel like being at the mall
42
Archer. “Designing Disneyland” https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/design-of-disneyland-book
41
Sarah Archer. “Designing Disneyland” AD PRO. November 22, 2018.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/design-of-disneyland-book
23
but like being transported to another universe. Yet, within that separate universe the
same realities of our everyday life: capitalism, racism, sexism, and homophobia still
exist, whether they are acknowledged or not. Disney is in the top 55 companies in the
world by market capitalization.
43
It has seeped into so many aspects of American life
and culture, from controlling media, developing real estate, and even recently, affecting
the political landscape.
44
Disney symbolizes the power of corporations, and the
influence of money on our social, cultural, and political lives. It is impossible to analyze
Disney without acknowledging these realities. But, for the purposes of this analysis,
what are the things that art spaces can learn from the successes and the popularity of
Disney? Disney uses space, place, and phenomenology as tools to affect our individual
psyches, ultimately opening our imaginations and changing our understanding of what’s
possible. Disney saw his parks not only as a way to experience the now but to imagine
a different future. For example, Tomorrowland offered a vision of the future–
“Tomorrowland captured the optimism of its moment, with its cheery combination of
educational exhibits and Googie-influenced architecture. At its 1955 inauguration,
Disney described Tomorrowland’s attractions as “a living blueprint of our future.”
“Tomorrow,” he said, “can be a wonderful age."
45
When designing “The Florida Project”
(or what would become Walt Disney World), Disney conceptualized the planned
45
Archer. “Designing Disneyland” https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/design-of-disneyland-book
44
Disney is currently in a legal battle with 2024 Presidential Candidate Ron DeSantis. DeSantis revoked
Disney’s special tax-exempt status within the State of Florida after Disney publicly criticized DeSantis’
‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. Disney is the U.S’ largest single-site employer and Florida largest single taxpayer.
This could have major influence on the Florida governor’s success in the upcoming election. Disney has
previously been called out for not taking a strong enough stance on the bill, as well as for the lack of
LGBTQ representation in their films. This complicated relationship is emblematic of how intimately tied
current day American culture and politics is with larger corporations (be it an entire entertainment
conglomerate ie Disney or an individual musical performer ie Taylor Swift).
43
Statista. “The 100 largest companies in the world by market capitalization in 2023”
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263264/top-companies-in-the-world-by-market-capitalization/
24
community of EPCOT, or Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. EPCOT was
meant to be “an actual city where people would work, live, and play. The city would
highlight the best of urban planning and new technologies.”
46
Though EPCOT never
came to fruition in the way Disney hoped for it to, it shows the broadness and depth he
imagined the reach of this experience could be. Jean Baudrillard famously uses
Disneyland as a key reference in his description of simulacra and simulation - seeing
Disneyland as the perfect example of Simulation. But, as Baudrillard also explains,
much of what we “experience” is mediated through advertisements, through media. This
is even more so in the case in the world of Instagram and artificial intelligence, as is the
experience of Disney, where we know the real is contrived, actually one of the most
“real” experiences we could be having. But is this really that different from the rest of our
every day in the 21st century?
As noted by Tom Vanderbilt in “It’s A Mall World After All: Disney, Design, And
The American Dream,”
The preservation of nature, like the preservation of Main Street, is an act
of both will and imagination. A national park, after all, is not a wilderness but a
“themed environment” whose theme is nature. In the end, Disney is not at odds
with a real city or a real landscape, but rather a very real part of each. The
Disney empire is, of course, an economic force in a world where, as David
Harvey points out, capital creates and destroys its own landscape. But more
significantly, the hope that Disney generates says much about the timeless
desire to preserve some version of the past through the tools and zeitgeist of the
present. The fear Disney augurs, conversely, hints at the insecurities of our
ability, in the present, to improve the future.
47
47
Tom Vanderbilt, “It’s A Mall World After All: Disney, Design, And The American Dream.” H a r v a r d D e s i g n
M a g a z i n e . F e a t u r e d I n 9: Constructions of Memory: On Monuments Old and New.
https://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/articles/it-s-a-mall-world-after-all-disney-design-and-the-america
n-dream/
46
Tom Bricker. “The History Of EPCOT Center.” Disney Tourist Blog. ND.
https://www.disneytouristblog.com/epcot-center-history/
25
Is this what all of this amounts to? The fear and inability to imagine a world or
future different from the one we have now? As mentioned over and over now, art
inherently does that. Artists are often future-facing, thinking beyond the constraints and
confines of right now, imagining new worlds into existence. In The Creative Act: A W ay
Of Being, Rick Rubin says, “As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a
more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival.”
48
Yet,
how often does the experience of art inspire this? Theme parks inspire a nostalgic,
child-like sense of imagination, a sense where you enter into a new world, yet wholly
and completely in your own body. “The critic Peter Blake, writing in 1975, suggested
that a near-bankrupt New York City be turned over to the planners at Disney, who “have
demonstrated to all the world how to build and operate a really exciting new town.”
49
Disney, and theme parks at large have figured out a task that much of the art world is
still struggling with – how do we build and develop an experience that is rooted in some
sort of cultural, historical, and spatial specificity? This is not a call to turn all museums
into theme parks, but more so a call to take some of these ideas and apply them to the
art world. How do we curate an intentional, cohesive experience? How do we slow
down and tap into hearts, minds, and feeling in our hyper-attention economy? How do
we counteract the death of our past and the fear of our future by building upon the
continuum of time? This is the double mediation, the alternate path diverging from the
option to remain stagnant, unchanging, or immediately turning all exhibitions into VR
immersive experiences entirely devoid of any original meaning or relevancy. This is
49
Vanderbilt, “Disney.”
48
Rick Rubin, T h e C r e a t i v e A c t : A W a y o f B e i n g. (New York: Penguin Press, 2023). 26.
26
about creating experiences that touch the depths of our souls, that inspire creativity,
shift perspectives, and build new worlds.
To experience is to feel it in your body, to feel chemically different than you would
without the experience. So often today’s “experiences” are relegated to Instagram fads
such as “The Museum of Ice Cream” or “Van Gogh’s Immersive Experiences” - those
are erlebnis. Those are experiences you go to do, to take photos of and say you did the
experience. Ehfahrung lies in spaces such as theme parks, such as sweating in a
dance club or seeing a film that fundamentally shifts how you walk through the world. As
we move closer and closer to a world mediated by forces beyond ourselves, it becomes
more and more crucial to develop and cling to these experiences. New technological
frontiers such as AI and social media may help keep us “connected” but they
simultaneously further alienate us, allowing us to live in our own bubbles (planets). How
do we shift it so we are forced to step outside ourselves every now and then? These
experiences all described above do so and do so in the hopes that they bring us deeper
and clearer into the world around us. Thich Nhat Hahn says “The past no longer exists,
and the future is not here yet. The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the
present moment. The present moment is the destination, the point to arrive at. Every
time you breathe in and take a step, you arrive: “Breathing in, I arrive. Breathing out, I
arrive.”
50
How can we use art, and art spaces, as a way to arrive? As an invitation to
enjoy the present moment? To be in communion with one another? To feel as though
we belong? This is the space where words and logic fail, yet where art and experience
thrive. Art is what keeps us alive– the ability to create and collaborate is what grounds
us in the world around us. Storytelling is what helps us to know experiences outside of
50
Thich Nhat Hanh, Y o u A r e H e r e (Boulder, CA: Shambhala, 2010), 26 .
27
our own, the art and the artists are there, but how can we as curators build the
framework for it to really shine?
28
Chapter Five: The Art Of Space and Place
“ A r t b r e a k s o p e n a d i m e n s i o n i n a c c e s s i b l e t o t h e o t h e r e x p e r i e n c e , a d i m e n s i o n i n w h i c h h u m a n
b e i n g s , n a t u r e , a n d t h i n g s n o l o n g e r s t a n d u n d e r t h e l a w o f t h e e s t a b l i s h e d r e a l i t y p r i n c i p l e . ” -
Herbert Marcuse
5 1
There are so many artists and art spaces already doing much of what I am calling for. In
this section, I will highlight a few specific ones, but will not be even scratching the
surface of what is already existing. A few of these examples are very intimately and
directly tied to theme parks, while others are models of how to use space and place as
tools for furthering the experience and power of art. Each of these artists and spaces
makes me optimistic about the future of the so-called art world.
Artist EJ Hill created Rises in the East as a part of Prospect.5, the 5th iteration of
Prospect New Orleans, a citywide art exhibition. Rises in the East is a former Six Flags
Ferris wheel gondola that hangs from a 40 ft iron structure in Joe W. Brown Park in New
Orleans East. This work is an ode to Six Flags Jazzland, an amusement park in New
Orleans East that opened in 2000 and closed in 2005 due to major damage from
Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans East is a historically black neighborhood, and “the
flooding and abandonment of Six Flags, which was originally called Jazzland, was a
“loss of space for Black joy.”
52
Rises in the East is an ode to Black joy and an ode to
resiliency. “Joe W. Brown Park is a space where Black residents continue to play,
connect, and celebrate—it is a point of community pride. This sculpture, Rises in the
East, is a monument to the recent history of New Orleans and to the existence,
52
Doug Maccash. “4-story monument to Six Flags amusement park rises in New Orleans East.”
Nola.com. December 15, 2021.
https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/arts/4-story-monument-to-six-flags-amusement-park-rises-in-new
-orleans-east/article_5fb6e2f6-5d1f-11ec-b869-33c86476632d.html
51
Herbert Marcuse, T h e A e s t h e t i c D i m e n s i o n (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), 72.
29
persistence, and necessity of everyday pleasures.”
53
Here, Hill takes the symbology of
the theme park, one of joy, one of community, and connects it to the surrounding
socio-political landscape.
Another artist using the symbology of the theme park is Peter Wu+. In 2020,
several museums and galleries responded to the worldwide stay-at-home orders due to
the COVID-19 pandemic by turning their physical gallery spaces into virtual
destinations. Most of these institutions did this quite literally, constructing a digital
experience out of their existing white cube spaces. This brings to light many of the
previously discussed notions – a severe lack of imagination in how to adopt new, digital
technologies within existing art spaces (as well as the assumption that the art works the
same, no matter the medium). Peter Wu+, who did not have a physical gallery space
before the pandemic, did exactly the opposite. He created Epoch Gallery, a virtual
gallery space that creates virtual landscapes in order to showcase both analog and
digital work. Wu+ generates immersive environments using new technology. For Wu+
the context of the landscape is what determines the curation of the art. Wonderland, a
group exhibition featuring US-based artists of the Chinese diaspora, used the context of
“Wonderland,” an abandoned amusement park project located in Chenzhuang Village,
China as the exhibition site.
54
“Wonderland was meant to be “the largest amusement
park in Asia,” construction of Wonderland was abandoned in 1998, after disagreements
with local governments and farmers over property prices. All that remains of the theme
park is the castle—a new kind of ruin produced by the fallout of late-stage
capitalism—which still exists IRL and, now transposed, to a virtual space.”
55
Visitors can
55
Peter Wu+. “Wonderland II” Peter Wu+. 2022. https://peter-wu.com/portfolio/wonderland-ii/
54
Epoch Gallery. https://epoch.gallery/Wonderland/index.htm
53
Prospect. 5 “EJ Hill” 2021. https://www.prospect5.org/artists/ej-hill
30
“walk” through the abandoned park, experiencing a series of installations throughout.
The castle reads “assimilation,” speaking to ideas of displacement, identity, and
belonging. The site of the exhibition provides context for the themes of the exhibition
just as much as each individual piece of work does. It all points to the argument, the
same brief, the same “change agenda.” There are no white walls, no neutral, innocuous
spaces, but rather a space that symbolizes late capitalism, geopolitics, labor relations,
and abandonment.
The important note here is the social, cultural, historical, and site specificity that
exists within both of these works. They are opposites in scales: Hill’s is impossible to
miss, standing at 40 ft in a popular public park, while Peter Wu+’s is literally within one’s
own computer screen. But, both use intentionality and specificity to create a cohesive,
immersive experience that provides clear context, while also allowing for the art to
speak for itself.
In “Bataille on Lascaux and the Origins of Art,” Richard White unpacks Bataille’s
under-discussed writings on his experience of the prehistoric art of the Lascaux Cave.
Directly we enter the Lascaux cave, “ he comments, “we are gripped by a strong
feeling we never have when standing in a museum, before the glassed cases
displaying the oldest petrified remains of men or neat rows of their stone
instruments. In underground Lascaux, we are assailed by that same feeling of
presence—of clear and burning presence—which works of art from no matter
what period have always excited us. Whatever it may seem, it is to tenderness, it
is to the generous kindliness which binds up souls in friendly brotherhood that the
beauty in man-made things appeals. Is it not beauty we love? And is it not that
high friendship the passion, the forever repeated question to which beauty alone
is the only possible reply?
56
According to Bataille, it was this experience that brought about “in art and passion, the
most profound aspiration of life” and we can recognize these people as “beings like
56
Richard White, “Bataille on Lascaux and the Origins of Art.” J a n u s H e a d. 320.
http://janushead.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/White.pdf
31
ourselves who sought to celebrate and transfigure the world through their art.” It is
through this experience that Bataille highlights the necessities of art – that which can
connect us to ourselves, our passions, and our aspirations, as well as to those well
before and those to come after us. It is the specificity of the site that furthers this, as
Bataille mentions, his feeling is a feeling “we never have when standing in a museum.”
Bataille’s book “is primarily concerned with understanding what it means to be human;
the difference between human nature and animal nature; and the scope of
transgression as an organizing power in human life.”
57
Though Bataille’s view was
particularly human-centric, I think we can open it up beyond just the human. It was
through his wonder with these caves that Bataille claims art as sacred, and more
specifically “the sacred as the deep reality of this life that we are typically alienated
from.” How can art help to blur the line between the human and nonhuman, the natural
and unnatural, permanent and ephemeral, us and them? What are some art world
experiences that are future-facing, fusing art and life, human and technology,
permanence and impermanence, differences and similarities, the natural and unnatural?
These specific thoughts and emotions could only happen within the cave. How does the
use of space or the context of place matter in the experience of art?
In One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, Miwon
Kwon offers a theoretical framework for the history of site-specific art. She writes
As many cultural critics and urban theorists have warned, the intensifying
conditions of such spatial undifferentiation and departicularization—fueled by an
ongoing globalization of technology and telecommunications to accommodate an
ever-expanding capitalist order—exacerbate the effects of alienation and
fragmentation in contemporary life………The drive toward a rationalized
universal civilization, engendering the homogenization of places and the erasure
of cultural differences, is in fact the force against which Frampton proposes a
57
White, “Bataille”, 329.
32
practice of “critical regionalism” as described in this chapter’s first epigraph—a
program for an “architecture of resistance.” If the universalizing tendencies of
modernism undermined the old divisions of power based on class relations fixed
to geographical hierarchies of centers and margins only to aid in capitalism’s
colonization of “peripheral” spaces, then the articulation and cultivation of diverse
local particularities is a (postmodern) reaction against these effects.
58
What does an “architecture of resistance” look like? How can we push the boundaries of
how we create art spaces and experiences so that we create intentional, specific,
inclusive spaces? How do phenomenology, culture, and history all come together to
create the experience of a place? As Kwon states, a reaction to the sanitized and
standardized nature of modernism has been a push in the opposite direction of
hyperspecificity, which also runs the risk of giving way to cultural consumption and
commodification if not done with delicacy and intentionality. Kwon writes,
What would it mean now to sustain the cultural and historical specificity of a
place (and self) that is neither a simulacral pacifier nor a willful invention? For
architecture, Frampton proposes a process of “double mediation,” which is in fact
a double negation, defying “both the optimization of advanced technology and
the ever-present tendency to regress into nostalgic historicism or the glibly
decorative.” An analogous double mediation in site-specific art practice might
mean finding a terrain between mobilization and specificity—to be out of place
with punctuality and precision.
59
One example of a successful use of this double mediation and architecture of
resistance is the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial For Peace and Justice in
Montgomery, Alabama. The National Memorial For Peace and Justice is a memorial
commemorating black victims of lynching in the United States. It is made up of 805
hanging steel rectangles, each of which represents the US counties in which the
lynchings took place. The names of the victims are engraved onto each rectangle.
59
Kwon, S i t e S p e c i f i c , 166.
58
Kwon, S i t e S p e c i f i c , 157
33
Additionally, throughout the large space, there are artworks depicting related themes by
prominent contemporary artists. The experience is sobering and gargantuan. It is so
physically arresting, so impossible to soak up the scope, which imitates that of the
horrors themselves. To re-quote Bataille, being in this space “we are assailed by that
same feeling of presence – of clear and burning presence.” It uses space to develop a
feeling of sobering suffocation as you grapple with the realities of the country’s past.
One of the most effective components of the memorial (which plays well into this idea of
mobilization and specificity) is that there is a way for counties to “ask for their monument
back.” There is a list of requirements that go along with that approval. This forces
counties around the country to really and truly reckon with their past, to encourage
communities to build their own memorials and public education around this history. This
memorial stands as a symbolic reminder of the horrors, it is simple yet deeply
immersive, using the use of space as a way to build this experience and emotion. There
are no white walls, no big fancy glass buildings, and no long series of text on the walls,
it is objects and space, objects in space. The Equal Justice Initiative’s Memorial was
created by MASS Design Group, an architecture firm that uses the built environment as
a tool for social justice and systemic change. Mass Design is currently developing a
model for the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture, which would become the
world’s first carbon-neutral university. They approach architecture and design, not as a
superficial or permanent process, but as something flexible, ever-evolving, and deeply
embedded within the social, cultural, and political fabric of its surroundings.
How can we apply this same logic to art spaces? How can we separate the
museum from the wealthy, “culture vulture” narrative that currently exists around it? How
34
can we turn the structures of the art world on itself? How else can we reimagine art and
art spaces? One traditional museum space which does this well is The Serpentine
Gallery in London’s Hyde Park. The Serpentine owns The Serpentine Pavilion, which is
an outdoor installation near the gallery’s main space. Annually, The Serpentine
commissions a new artist to reimagine The Pavilion. This flexibility shows so much
possibility for how museums can adapt, challenging the status quo and counteracting
against the traditional narratives that they have potentially bought into. The most recent
artist takeovers are the architect Lina Ghotmeh. “Built predominantly from bio-sourced
and low-carbon materials, the Serpentine Pavilion 2023 continues her focus on
sustainability and designing spaces that are conceived in dialogue with the history and
natural environment that surrounds them.”
60
In 2023, The Pavillion, Black Chapel, was
designed by the artist Theaster Gates and was meant to encourage peacefulness,
quiet, and solitude within the bustling urban environment. As Gates says, "I have always
wanted to build spaces that consider the power of sound and music as a healing
mechanism and emotive force that allows people to enter a space of deep reflection and
deep participation."
61
This is one example of an art space that is finding an inventive and
genuine way to respond to cultural events, as well as building adaptability and flexibility
into the foundation of what they are doing. This is beyond an immediate response to
current political events, but really thinking deeply about the space, place, and history
that a museum or art center occupies. How can we imagine museums as spaces of
61
Tom Ravenscroft. “Theaster Gates creates Black Chapel Serpentine Pavilion as "a space of deep
reflection"” Dezeen. June 7, 2022.
https://www.dezeen.com/2022/06/07/theaster-gates-black-chapel-serpentine-pavilion-2022/
60
“Serpentine Pavilion 2023 by Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture” Serpentine Galleries.
https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/serpentine-pavilion-2023-by-lina-ghotmeh/
35
genuine community, creative expression, engagement, and collaboration? How can
museums expand outside of the traditional audiences they so often serve?
If EJI’s Memorial is meant to be sobering, reverent, and reflective, then on the
other end of that lies MONA, or the Museum of Old and New Art, carved into a headland
in Hobart, Tasmania. MONA was founded in 2011 by professional gambler David Walsh.
“Walsh intended MONA to serve as a riotous rebuttal to traditional museums, which he
believed to be “designed to inculcate a sense of inferiority, to prepare you for the
instilling of faith.”
62
The feeling of a museum space has been over-discussed at this
point, but MONA requires visitors to suspend any expectation of what a museum is, or
what happens in that space. As stated in a review of the museum, “A real “experience,”
it takes the adult playground aspect of art museums to extremes; not for nothing has
founder David Walsh described it as a “subversive adult Disneyland.” Approached by
ferry, visitors enter by descending down twisting spiral staircases, into a disorientating,
deliberately labyrinthine domain. There is a gallery filled with an unctuous black liquid,
another with velvet walls. MONA is not a place for white cube purists.”
63
Many, but not
all, of the works, explore variations on sex and death – topics often explored in
contemporary art, but rarely this overtly. The permanent collection contains some of
contemporary art’s most well-known, such as James Turrell, Ai Wei Wei, Alfredo Jaar,
and Marina Abramović, Jaar’s work, The Divine Comedy , takes viewers on a journey
through the afterlife, while Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca Professional is an installation of
machines that imitates the human digestive system. Much of the work is grotesque,
carnal, and transgressive in nature. The app that guides you through the museum is
63
“In the Depths of Tasmania, a “Subversive Adult Disneyland”” elephant.
62
“In the Depths of Tasmania, a “Subversive Adult Disneyland”” e l e p h a n t. November 16, 2020.
https://elephant.art/in-the-depths-of-tasmania-lives-a-subversive-adult-disneyland-17112020/
36
called “The O.” There is no wall text within the museum at all, but there is a section of
“The O” called “Art Wank” which gives you the curatorial statement and context if
desired. It does not take itself too seriously, allowing it to really hold a mirror to the
traditional contemporary art museum. There is a balance between traditional 2D art and
immersive technology, the “masters” and the lesser-known artists, shock and reflection,
light and dark. It holds all of these contradictions at once, with keen agonism.. Kwon
writes about the importance of art in confronting seemingly contradictory forces saying,
Thus, it is not a matter of choosing sides—between models of nomadism and
sedentariness, between space and place, between digital interfaces and the
handshake. Rather, we need to be able to think the range of the seeming
contradictions and our contradictory desires for them together; to understand, in
other words, seeming oppositions as sustaining relations. How do we account,
for instance, for the sense of soaring exhilaration and the anxious dread
engendered by the new fluidities and continuities of space and time, on the one
hand, and their ruptures and disconnections on the other? And what could this
doubleness of experience mean in our lives? in our work?
64
As Kwon says, how can we take this doubleness of experience and embrace it in our
daily lives? How can we begin to see life as less binary, less divided, and more as an
ever-evolving, interconnected entity? How can we use the experience of the present
moment as a way to understand the past and reimagine the future? All of these
aforementioned spaces eagerly invite us to do so.
64
Kwon, S i t e S p e c i f i c , 166
37
Chapter Six: Where Do We Go From Here?
“ I t ’ s [ d i g i t a l c u l t u r e s ] m y t h s o f n e c e s s i t y , u b i q u i t y , e f f i c i e n c y , o f i n s t a n t a n e i t y r e q u i r e d i s m a n t l i n g :
i n p a r t , b y d i s r u p t i n g t h e s e p a r a t i o n o f c e l l u l a r i t y , b y r e f u s i n g p r o d u c t i v i s t i n j u n c t i o n s , b y i n d u c i n g
s l o w s p e e d s a n d i n h a b i t i n g s i l e n c e s . ”
6 5
- Jonathan Crary
Our world is currently moving at hyperspeed and it is only getting faster. To counteract,
we must move slower, quieter, more mindfully. We must open our eyes to the world
around us, questioning where it has been and where it is going. The movie The Great
Beauty opens with a quote from Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel Journey to the End of
the Night:
Travel is useful; it exercises the imagination. All the rest is disappointment and
fatigue. Our journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength. It goes from life to
death. People, animals, cities, things – all are imagined. It's a novel, just a
fictitious narrative. Littré says so, and he's never wrong. And besides, in the first
place, anyone can do as much. You just have to close your eyes. It's on the other
side of life.
66
Much like travel, art opens up our imagination and encourages us to seek new
mediums and new realities. We are in a time of a crisis of imagination, and it is art that
helps to reinvigorate our social and political imagination. In Capitalist Realism, Mark
Fisher reckons with the idea that capitalism has become so ubiquitous, that it is so
ingrained in our daily existence, that we fail to be able to even imagine any sort of
alternative to it. Art is our only hope to do so. Films, theme parks, and moments of
collective effervescence are slight tears in the capitalist fabric - inviting us to imagine
66
T h e G r e a t B e a u t y. Directed by Paolo Sorrentino. 2013. Rome: Medusa Film.
65
Jonathan Crary “Eclipse of the Spectacle” A r t A f t e r M o d e r n i s m . (New York: The New Museum of
Contemporary Art). 294.
38
beyond, create new worlds, and develop possible alternatives. In her 1976 speech,
Moral Inhabitants, Toni Morrison says,
Our past is bleak. Our future is dim. But I am not reasonable. A reasonable man
adjusts to his environment. An unreasonable man does not. All progress,
therefore, depends on the unreasonable man. I prefer not to adjust to my
environment. I refuse the prison of "I" and choose the open spaces of "we." The
artist is the unreasonable being, that which does not use logic, that who does not
adjust. We are the moral inhabitants of the globe. To deny this, regardless of our
feeble attempts to live up to it, is to lie in prison.
67
So, it is time to be unreasonable, to embrace the contradictory, and to create intentional
spaces of artful experience. This not only shifts our relation to one another, but also
blurs boundaries and breaks binaries, morphing us into our more empathetic,
understanding, and compassionate selves, and helping us to reclaim and reimagine our
social and political realities. How can museums evolve to help to break down this
prison? Or are museums inevitably the prisons themselves?
Nothing in this book
Is known to be true.
It’s a reflection on what I’ve noticed –
Not facts so much as thoughts.
Some ideas may resonate,
Others may not.
A few may awaken an inner knowing
you forgot you had.
Use what’s helpful.
Let go of the rest.
Each of these moments
Is an invitation
to further inquiry:
Looking deeper,
Zooming out, or in.
Opening possibilities
for a new way of being.
68
68
Rick Rubin, T h e C r e a t i v e A c t : A W a y o f B e i n g. (New York: Penguin Press, 2023).
67
Toni Morrison, T h e S o u r c e o f S e l f - R e g a r d : S e l e c t e d E s s a y s , S p e e c h e s , a n d M e d i t a t i o n s (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2019), 47.
39
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract We, in the 21st century, are a series of contradictions. Many of us have spent our lives unintentionally digesting nondecomposable materials, materials that will live on beyond our corporeal selves, making us a collaboration between organic and artificial, natural and unnatural. Our lives are becoming more mediated by technology, though we still value in-person interactions. Participation in organized religion is at an all-time low, yet we crave meaning and oneness. There is a crisis of imagination, as people cut themselves off from history, and simultaneously fail to see any possibility of a radically different future. The experience of art is one of the greatest tools for connecting us to a world outside of ourselves, as well as helping us to imagine alternate realities. Yet, much of the visual art of today is experienced in either a hyper-controlled, innocuous museum or a vaguely art-flavored “immersive exhibition.” In this thesis, I will assess these extremes of the contemporary art world and consider some artists and art spaces pushing back against white walls, single lanes, and neutrality. What role do phenomenology, and cultural, historical, and site specificity play in the experience of art? How do we embrace this “doubleness of experience” to reawaken our sense of imagination around our social and political realities? Can we expand our idea of art and pull inspiration from less traditional spaces? I am not suggesting that theme parks and jazz music will save the world, but hey, maybe I am!

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Asset Metadata

Creator brock, taylor (author)

Core Title the experience of art and the art of experience: museums, theme parks, and van gogh in the 21st century

School Roski School of Art and Design

Degree Master of Arts / Master of Planning

Degree Program Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere

Degree Conferral Date 2023-12

Publication Date 09/11/2023

Defense Date 09/08/2023

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag art,experience,immersive experiences,museums,OAI-PMH Harvest,theme parks

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Lin, Jenny (committee chair), Kim, Annette (committee member), Lacy, Suzanne (committee member)

Creator Email brockt@usc.edu,taylorbrock1206@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113305040

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Legacy Identifier etd-brocktaylo-12357

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Format theses (aat)

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